Caltech class sizes and the "Rule of 150"

[SilvaRua]

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@raimius

Military rules are both formally and informally enforced. There is a strict heirarchy of authority which enforces formal rules and an informal peer enforcement of rules. It is hard to really be close after expanding much past the company level, although I’m sure there are some relatively close knit brigades out there.

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<p>I largely agree. Just keep in mind some regiments have as few as a couple hundred men. It really depends on what is meant by “close”; as described in Gladwell’s book, even certain regiments qualify. </p>

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@Ben

Whoa, SilvaRua, who applied the poison ivy to your toothbrush this morning? Your hostility makes you look pretty silly.

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<p>That’s how I typically write when disagreeing, except in this case, Tom has a reputation for unrelated, wrong, random comments, (opinion of a lot of Techers) and I know he has zero knowledge about the military. </p>

<p>What would you rather I write; “Dear Sir, I respectfully but humbly disagree with your assertion?” </p>

<p>Come on; I write the way I talk, and you and I are both smart and mature enough (you moreso than me) to handle it. </p>

<p>I probably should have glossed over that comment, anyways; it doesn’t even relate to the focus at all. </p>

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The relevant type of group at Caltech, by the way, is the house, not the class. Most Techers would agree that the typical house fits the mold described by Gladwell in a fairly exact way.

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<p>True enough, but that’s really more of a function of the structure of a House rather than a simple numbers game, wouldn’t you agree? </p>

<p>And even there, how does it extend to people living offcampus? For the most part, it doesn’t. </p>

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They are, without a doubt, often quite successful organizations, but they simply don’t function in the “highly personal” way that entails everyone actually knowing almost everyone else.

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<p>Meh, like I mentioned earlier, some regiments are significantly smaller (a few hundred men), and if you meant “highly personal” in the traditional sense, well congratulations, you’ve also proved that no House fits Gladwell’s classification either. </p>

<p>The rule of 150 is a very general guideline which makes broad statements easier to make, but applied to a specific, unique situation, it’s worthless. </p>

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The idea about groups of 150 wasn’t introduced by Gladwell. It does, however, happen to be generally accepted by scholars who have forgotten more about social behavior than you will ever know.

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<p>I thought the book was overrrated; regardless of whether you believed the prose was engaging or not, it was horribly dumbed down. (Which I guess is a perequisite for any popular pseduo-scientific book nowadays) </p>

<p>That’s not necessarily bad, but there are a ridiculous number of counterexamples to all of Gladwell’s arguments. </p>

<p>But yeah, to once again answer the original poster’s question; no.</p>